New Film Thing: Beauty And The Beast

There's a moment roughly half an hour into 2017's Beauty And The Beast where Emma Watson, with a sustained look of mild irritation and weariness, stands still for a while as the talking CGI furniture quips at her and adorns her with a wacky wig. There's nothing particularly bad about this scene. It just... happens. Everyone is going through the motions of making this movie exist and this scene is one of the movie's scenes, so they should probably film it. And Emma Watson, despite seeming mildly irritated and weary about the whole thing, probably doesn't feel particularly strongly about any of it, either.

It's hard for me to come out with much of a strong statement on this movie, either. It's a wildly commercially successful live-action remake of a beloved animated film that bloats the running time a bit with some minor additions. Some technically impressive and undoubtedly expensive special effects work can't cover up the general feeling of lifelessness and tedium that permeates this thing.

To make this point more clearly, I would have people compare the original "Be Our Guest" scene to the remake's. This is all highly subjective, of course, but man, who would actually prefer the remake here? The original is light, airy, and fun, and the remake is weighed down with self-aggrandizing instrumental insertions that slow things down to try to make the scene feel like a big deal. Even Cartoon Belle is having more fun than Watson Belle.